Mombasa,KENYA:18,000 bags of rice have been received as relief food that will be disbursed to hunger-stricken counties in coastal Kenya which are Tana River, Kilifi, Kwale and Lamu.
The bags were disbursed by the Devolution Cabinet Secretary Eugene Wamalwa at the Mombasa port on Monday.
Speaking at the Mombasa port, Devolution Cabinet Secretary Eugene Wamalwa said that they had received 55,000 bags of rice and 18,000 would be left at the port for distribution to coastal counties.
“Because of the coastal counties that are also drought stressed, we have agreed we are going to leave part of this rice here at the coast.Out of the 55,000, we have agreed that 18,000 bags are going to be left right here so that they can be disbursed to Kilifi, Tana River, Kwale and Lamu,” Wamalwa said.
Wamalwa said that the government was committed to the disbursement of relief food to counties that had not yet received rainfall saying the government had set aside sh 3.8 billion for relief food.
According to the Cabinet secretary, the 18,000 bags would top up to 100,000 bags of maize that had been harvested at the Galana –Kulalu irrigation scheme.
23 counties are currently facing drought with the worst hit being TanaRiver, Isiolo, Kajiado, Mandera and Garissa.
This comes just a week after the Tana River county disbursed 4,000 bags of rice to help in containing the situation.
